League of Legends’ bot lane has been one of the more diverse parts of the game in recent patches, but with marksmen now sharing that space with bruisers and mages, Riot Games is looking to make playing the traditional carries more satisfying.
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AD carries such as Lucian and Kai’Sa still get played in every level of play from normal games to the professional scene ever since Patch 8.11 shook the meta up, but they’re occasionally seen outside of the bot lane in favor of the middle lane. Sometimes they’re also used in roaming mid-jungle hybrids where gold is funneled onto the champions to ensure a quick powerspike, but no matter where they’re played, Riot’s noticed that player satisfaction has taken a hit since the changes were implemented.
“We’ve seen diversity like we haven’t in years which has changed the way players think about the game, where champs can be played, and what strategies to employ – and that’s been incredibly exciting,” Riot Maple Nectar said on the League of Legends boards. “But as many of you have expressed (and as surveys have recently reinforced), that diversity came at the cost of marksmen satisfaction – especially those relying on crit items to scale into the late game.”
The Rioter stressed that the words “satisfaction” and “viability” aren’t interchangeable in this context. He added that marksmen are still picked more than anything else in the bot lane and aren’t left out of the meta, but the satisfaction element of playing them has dropped regardless.
To correct this imbalance, Riot Maple Nectar says the team is looking to lower the power of the top-tier ADCs such as Ezreal and Kai’Sa while buffing the weaker ones like Tristana and Caitlyn. Plans for slight buffs to the game’s critical chance items such as Infinity Edge, Stormrazer, and Brawler’s Glove are also on the table with the Rioter summing up the primary goals as follows:
- Increase how satisfying it feels to play an ADC
- Move some crit marksman power out of late game and into early/mid game by shrinking some of their larger item purchases in both cost and stats.
- Maintain the diversity in the bot lane carry role that we’ve seen since midseason
Providing one example of the changes that they might make, the Rioter previewed a Statikk Shiv change that would reduce the total cost by 100 down to 2,800 gold with the critical chance also being lowered slightly from 30 percent to 25 percent. The Rioter closed by saying that the goal here isn’t to return the bot lane to an ADC-only environment but said that Riot Games wants ADC players to “come online” earlier in the game and get their powerspikes earlier.
No patch timeframe for when these changes might be released was provided.
